groope vat ii

8/12/2019 Groope Vat II

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/groope-vat-ii 1/35

http://tsj.sagepub.com/ Theological Studies

http://tsj.sagepub.com/content/72/3/586The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/004056391107200305

2011 72: 586Theological Studies Elizabeth T. Groppe

of Catholic-Jewish DialogueRevisiting Vatican II's Theology of the People of God after Forty-Five Years

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Theological Studies, Inc

can be found at:Theological Studies Additional services and information for

http://tsj.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://tsj.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

What is This?

- Sep 1, 2011Version of Record>>

by Michael Mach on March 6, 2014tsj.sagepub.comDownloaded from by Michael Mach on March 6, 2014tsj.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://tsj.sagepub.com/



http://tsj.sagepub.com/content/72/3/586



http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://tsj.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepublications.com/

http://tsj.sagepub.com/content/72/3/586.full.pdf

http://tsj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts







http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml























http://www.sagepublications.com/





REVISITING VATICAN II’S THEOLOGY OF

THE PEOPLE OF GOD AFTER FORTY-FIVE YEARS OFCATHOLIC-JEWISH DIALOGUE

ELIZABETH T. GROPPE

Lumen gentium described biblical Israel as a preparation and figureof the church, the new people of God. Jews do not belong to this

people but are ordained to it. In light of Nostra aetate and theensuing Catholic-Jewish dialogue, the article supplements Lumen

gentium’s typological account of biblical Israel as a prefigurationof the church with an eschatological theology of Christians and Jewsas a broken people who nonetheless remain covenant partners in

pilgrimage to the mountain of the Lord.

In the days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as thehighest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it;many peoples shall come and say: “Come,” let us climb the Lord’s mountain, tothe house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his way, and we may walkin his paths” (Isa 2:2–3, NAB).

ISAIAH’S PROPHECY OF A DAY when all people of the earth shall worshipthe Lord and dwell in peace has inspired the eschatologies of both Jews

and Christians. Within Christian eschatological visions, the place grantedto Jews has varied. In the second century, Justin Martyr cited Isaiah’swords in the context of his Dialogue with Trypho, in which he took theposition that the old covenant is abrogated by the advent of the new lawof Jesus Christ and that Christians are the true people Israel.1 Nearly two

ELIZABETH T. GROPPE received her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dameand is associate professor of systematic theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati,Ohio. Her areas of special interest are trinitarian theology, theology and ecology,and Christian-Jewish relations. She has most recently published “After Augustine:Humility and the Search for God in Historical Memory,” in Learned Ignorance:

Intellectual Humility among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, ed. Reuven Firestone,James L. Heft, and Omid Safi (2011); and Eating and Drinking (2011). In progress isa monograph on theology and ecology.

She is grateful to Thomas Stransky, John Borelli, Edward Hahnenberg, ArthurDewey, Mary Boys, Robert Krieg, Peter Huff, David Mengel, Shannon Byrne,

Thomas Strunk, and the referees and editor of Theological Studies for critiquesand assistance with drafts of this article.

1 Justini Martyris Dialogus cum Tryphone, ed. Miroslav Marcovich (Berlin:Walter de Gruyter, 1997) 24.3; 11.2; 135.3; E.T., St. Justin Martyr: Dialogue with

Theological Studies72 (2011)

586

by Michael Mach on March 6, 2014tsj.sagepub.comDownloaded from








millennia later, the Second Vatican Council proclaimed Isaiah’s words of peace to a world shadowed by the threat of nuclear war2 and affirmed thatthe Jews remain very dear to God, who does not repent of gifts bestowed

(Rom 11:28–20).3 The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen gentium) described biblical Israel as a people chosen to prepare and prefig-ure the new and perfect covenant given through the Word of God madeflesh in Jesus Christ, who called together a new people of God (no. 9).According to Lumen gentium, the Jews do not belong to this people butare ordained to it (ordinantur ad) (no. 16).

In this article, I first offer a historical perspective on Vatican II’sapproach to Catholic-Jewish relations by considering the origins of bothNostra aetate’s statement on the Jewish people and Lumen gentium’s

theology of the people of God. Particular attention is given to the con-tribution of Yves Congar, a leading conciliar peritus who had greatexpertise in ecclesiology but limited experience with Judaism. The sec-ond part of the article discusses the postconciliar development of theCatholic Church’s first sustained dialogue with postbiblical rabbinicJudaism. Fruits of this dialogue include the affirmation that Jews andChristians share in the covenantal life of the God of Israel, remorse forthe sins of Christians against the Jewish people, appreciation for theongoing spiritual vitality of rabbinic Judaism, and a reconsideration of

dichotomous theologies of Christian-Jewish relations. In light of thesedevelopments, the article supplements Lumen gentium’s typological the-ology of the relation between biblical Israel and the Christian churchwith an eschatological theology of Jews and Christians as a brokenpeople who nonetheless remain covenant partners in pilgrimage to themountain of the Lord.

THE ORIGINS OF NOSTRA AETATE ’S THEOLOGY OF

THE JEWISH PEOPLE

When Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli served as the apostolicdelegate to Turkey and Greece from 1935–1944, he helped Jews obtainvisas for Palestine to spare them deportation to Nazi concentration camps.4

In 1959, as the newly elected Pope John XXIII, he excised the term perfidis

from the Solemn Intercession of the Good Friday liturgy that had exhorted,

Trypho, Selections from the Fathers of the Church, vol. 3, trans. Thomas B. Falls,

ed. Michael Slusser (Washington: Catholic University of America, 2003).2 Guadium et spes no. 78 (citation of Isa 2:4).3 Nostra aetate no. 4.4 See Peter Hebblethwaite, Pope John XXIII: Shepherd of the Modern World

(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985) 186–96.

VATICAN II’S THEOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD 587









“Oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis.”5 Nonetheless, when John XXIII con-vened Vatican II, the relation of the Catholic Church and the Jewish peoplewas not part of the original agenda. In the 15 volumes of conciliar vota et

desideria solicited from bishops, superiors general, Catholic universities,Bible institutes, and Roman curial congregations, one finds scant refer-ences to Catholic-Jewish relations. Nineteen Jesuits at the Pontifical Bibli-cal Institute did request that the council take up the topic of the Jewishpeople, noting that they should never be alleged to have been rejected byGod.6 Another response, markedly different in spirit, urged the council “tocondemn international freemasonry, controlled by the Jews.”7

The declaration Nostra aetate would not have become part of the concil-iar corpus had it not been for Jules Isaac, a French Jewish scholar and

principal founder, together with Edmond Fleg of Amitie Jude o-Chre tiennede France, a federation of associations that fostered mutual understandingand respect between Christians and Jews. Although others had hoped thatthe council would take up the matter of the church’s relation to the Jewishpeople,8 it was Isaac who reached the heart of Pope John XXIII. Isaachad lost his wife and daughter to the Nazi genocide and was himself perse-cuted under the Vichy regime. In June 1960, at the age of 81, he traveled toRome for a papal audience and delivered a memorandum and documen-tary dossier that chronicled the history of Catholic teaching, legislation, and

action toward the Jewish people.9 “How in a few minutes,” he wrote in hismemoirs, “was I to make the Pope understand that at the same time as amaterial ghetto, there had been a spiritual ghetto in which the Churchgradually enclosed old Israel?”10

5 See J. Oscar Beozzo, “The External Climate,” in History of Vatican II , ed.Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak, 5 vols. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis,1995) 1:357–404, at 394. The Latin term perfidis means simply “unbelieving,”although it is often translated as “perfidious.” In any case, Dutch Bishop Johannes

van Dodewaard noted that the Jews are better described as populus ille fidelis(a believing or faithful people) because of their relationship to God. See JohnM. Oesterreicher, “Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-ChristianReligions,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II , ed. HerbertVorgrimler, 5 vols. (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969) 3:1–136, at 48.

6 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 8–9.7 Thomas F. Stransky, C.S.P.,“Holy Diplomacy: Making the Impossible Possi-

ble,” in Unanswered Questions: Theological Views of Jewish-Catholic Relations, ed.Roger Brooks (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1988) 51–69, at 54–55.On the vota et desideria see E tienne Fouilloux, “The Anteprepatory Phase: TheSlow Emergence from Inertia (January 1959–October 1962),” in History of Vatican

II 1:55–166, at 123, 137.8 On other voices, see John M. Oesterreicher, The New Encounter betweenChristians and Jews (New York: Philosophical Library, 1986) 116–28.

9 Beozzo, “External Climate” 395–97; Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 2–4.10 Cited in Stransky, “Holy Diplomacy” 51.

588 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES









The Christian theology of contempt (me pris) that Isaac documentedportrayed Judaism as a legalistic religion, held the Jews collectively respon-sible for the crime of deicide because of the role some Jews played in the

crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and interpreted the Roman Empire’s destruc-tion of the Temple in 70 CE as a divinely sanctioned punishment for Jewishcrimes.11 Isaac appealed for a reform of this teaching that was in his judg-ment so counter to the gospel of love. John XXIII asked Isaac to meet withCardinal Augustin Bea and, in September 1960, the pope entrusted Bea’sSecretariat for Promoting Christian Unity with the responsibility to pre-pare conciliar material on “the Jewish question.” Bea appointed a Sub-Commission for Jewish Questions, whose members included Abbot LeoRudloff and advisors Gregory Baum and John Oesterreicher.12

“If I had been able to foresee all the difficulties we would have encoun-tered,” Bea told a friend many years later, “I do not know whether I wouldhave had the courage to undertake this task.”13 Bea’s subcommissiondrafted the Decretum de Judaeis, which was approved at the Secretariat’sNovember–December 1961 plenary meeting in Ariccia.14 In June 1962,however, the Central Commission15 removed the topic from the agenda of the council scheduled to open in October. Cardinal Amleto GiovanniCicognani, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, was sensitive to the oppositionof Arab political leaders who believed that any conciliar statement favor-

able to Jews would strengthen the position of the state of Israel.16

Cicognani’s concerns were exacerbated by the protests that followed theannouncement of the World Jewish Congress that Dr. Chaim Wardi, anofficial of the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs, would represent them asan unofficial council observer.17

In December 1962, Bea presented a memo directly to the pope emphasiz-ing the pastoral and theological need for discussion of the Jewish Question at

11

Jules Isaac, L’Enseignement du me pris: Ve rite historique et mythes the ologiques(Paris: Fasquelle, 1962); E.T., The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965).

12 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 18.13 Stjepan Schmidt, Augustin Bea, the Cardinal of Unity, trans. Leslie Wearne

(New Rochelle, N.Y.: New City, 1992) 500.14 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 40–41; Giovanni Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues:

Religious Freedom and the Jews,” in History of Vatican II 4:95–193, at 137.15 The pope or his representative presided over the Central Commission, which

was charged with establishing the specialized commissions of the council and coor-dinating their activities. One of these 16 commissions was Bea’s Secretariat for

Christian Unity. See Fouilloux, “Antepreparatory Phase” 157.16 Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 137–38; Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 42.17 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 41–42; Joseph A. Komonchak, “The Struggle for

the Council during the Preparation of Vatican II (1960–1962),” in History of Vati-can II 1:167–356, at 271; Beozzo, “External Climate” 397–98.










a later point in the conciliar process. Pope John supported Bea’s appeal, andthis decision was honored by Pope Paul VI, who was elected to succeed JohnXXIII on June 21, 1963. A declaration on the Jews was presented to the

Council Fathers the following fall as part of the text De oecumenismo.18

When Bea addressed the worldwide congregation of bishops on November18, 1963, he cited texts from the Gospels and Paul attesting that the Jewishpeople were not rejected by God. He also emphasized that the tradition thatcharged the entire Jewish community with the crime of deicide has no soundtheological basis. Anti-Semitism, he stated, did not originate in the teachingof the church, but anti-Semitic ideas did exist among Catholics and must beaddressed for reasons that were not political but strictly theological. Aboveall, this was a matter of fidelity to the love of Christ.19

Some European and American bishops expressed support for the decla-ration on the Jews, while Eastern patriarchs were unanimous in opposi-tion.20 The patriarchs were sensitive to the protests of Arab governmentsand concerned that the proposed statement could lead to violence againstChristian minorities in Arab countries. Vocal opposition also came fromoutside the aula of St. Peter’s Basilica where the council met. During thefirst session, each bishop received a copy of Complotto contra la Chiesa

(“Conspiracy against the Church”) by a pseudonymous Maurice Pinay,who identified Jewry or the “synagogue of Satan” as the driving force

behind the threat of international Communism.21 This was only the begin-ning of a stream of anti-Jewish books and pamphlets that would be distrib-uted to the bishops over the course of the council proceedings.22

In April 1964, Cicognani reported at a meeting of the CoordinatingCommission23 on the hostility with which the declaration on the Jews hadbeen received in Arab nations and the risks posed to Christians in the East.

18 English translations of the multiple drafts of the text that ultimately became

the declaration Nostra aetate are reprinted in the appendix of The Catholic Churchand the Jewish People: Recent Reflections from Rome, ed. Philip A. Cunningham,Norbert J. Hofmann, S.D.B., and Joseph Sievers (New York: Fordham, 2007)191–200.

19 For the full text of Bea’s statement, see Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti ConciliiOecumenici Vaticani Secundi (hereafter AS), 32 parts in 5 vols. (Vatican City:Vatican, 1970–86) II/5:481–85; for an English synopsis, see Miccoli, “Two SensitiveIssues” 139.

20 Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 141.21 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 117; Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 158 n. 235.22 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 117–22; Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 157.23

The Coordinating Commission was established in December 1962 and givenauthority over conciliar commissions in regard to the revision of schemas.Cicognani served as its president. See Jan Grootaers, “The Drama Continuesbetween the Acts: The ‘Second Preparation’ and Its Opponents,” in History of Vatican II 2:359–514, at 365–83.










In a letter sent to Bea following this meeting, Cicognani stated that De

oecumenismo’s appendix on the Jews was to become a broader “Declara-tion on the Jews and Non-Christian Peoples.” It was to articulate the

connection between the church and the Jewish people, avoid any referenceto the charge of deicide, and affirm that other non-Christian peoples arealso children of God.24 The excision of any explicit renunciation of accusa-tions against the Jews related to Christ’s Passion, notes Giovanni Miccoli,would “radically change the balance and scope of the discourse by empty-ing it of all its original motivations.”25

Charles Moeller and Yves Congar were called on to help draft a newtext.26 Congar proposed making the additions necessary to broaden thescope of the declaration while preserving nearly the entire original text of

Bea’s secretariat, removing the word “deicide” but expressing the same ideain other terms.27 The new statement, De Judaeis et de non-Christianis, circu-lated among the General Secretariat, the pope, and the Coordinating Com-mission. Bea then addressed the conciliar assembly on September 25, 1964.28

In the two days of intense debate that followed, the majority of the CouncilFathers strongly supported the declaration.29 “There were moments,”Oesterreicher recalls, “when an atmosphere of awe lay upon the Council. Itcould be perceived that what was being dealt with here was not a matter of abstract principle, but the most concrete of all questions—the encounter of

man with man, and of man with God.”30 Some did voice strong objections.The Oriental patriarchs reiterated their position that the statement wasinopportune, while some expressed views that reflected the long history of Christian anti-Judaism. One cardinal stated that “the Jews support and pro-mote the pernicious sect of the Masons” that is always “plotting against theChurch.”31 And one bishop maintained that the “hardness of heart withwhich the chosen people opposed the divine plan is no less serious than thekilling of Christ,” and that all Jews suffer the result of this crime, “namely theloss of the divine election and the wretched state of the firstborn son who left

his Father’s house.”32 Despite the opposition, the discussion concluded with

24 Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 143–44.25 Ibid. 144.26 Yves Congar, Mon journal du Concile, ed. E ric Mahieu, 2 vols. (Paris: Cerf,

2002) 2:70.27 Ibid. 2:71, 74.28 For Bea’s remarks, see AS III/2:558–64.29

AS III/2:579–607; III/3:11–55, 141–42, 155–78. For English versions of many of these speeches, see Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 67–80.

30 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 68.31 AS III/2:586; translation in Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 156–57.32 AS III/3:157; translation in Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 165.










a request from the majority that Bea’s subcommission clarify and strengthenthe text.33

This was not the end of the drama that the proposed declaration had

provoked. On October 8, 1964, Bea was informed that there would be nodeclaration on non-Christians peoples and the Jews—just an abbreviatedstatement to be formulated by a special commission and included in thechapter De Populo Dei of the schema De ecclesia.34 Concerned by this turnof events, Bea and others made a number of interventions, and work on afull declaration ultimately did proceed with efforts to expand the sectionsof the text on non-Christian religions.35 Finally, at the conclusion of acomplex process, the statement on the Jews and others who are not Chris-tian became its own self-standing declaration, Nostra aetate. Despite ongo-

ing vocal objections, the final version was promulgated on October 28,1965, with a vote of 2221 bishops in favor, 88 opposed, and 3 votesdiscounted as invalid.36 The final form of the declaration reflects the workof both the consultors and the bishops, whose voices in the discussionshaped Nostra aetate in important ways. Oesterreicher explains:

The images of the olive-tree, the return to the Pauline profession of Christ as thefounder of peace between Jews and Gentiles, indeed as himself being that peace, thenew conception of the Church’s eschatological hope, the strengthened warning againsta biased, one-sided interpretation of Scripture, the clear rejection of any Jewish

collective guilt—all these vital changes, which gave the draft that followed the greatdebate its special character—derive from suggestions made by the bishops.37

In the end, a declaration that originated in the appeal of a Jewish scholarfor justice for his own people became a statement in which the churchrecognized that the establishment of a proper relationship with the Jewishpeople is not only a matter of justice for the Jews, but also a matter of theintegrity and catholicity of the Catholic Church itself.38

Nostra aetate begins with a reflection on the unity of the human commu-nity and the ultimate questions it holds in common (no. 1). The declarationthen affirms that the religions of the world are a response to a hidden powerin our human search for meaning and that “the Catholic Church rejects

33 Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 166.34 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 83; Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 167.35 Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 166–93.36 Oesterreicher, New Encounter 276; Mauro Velati, “Completing the Conciliar

Agenda,” in History of Vatican II 5:185–273, at 211–31. By comparison, the finalvote in December 1963 on Sacrosanctum concilium was 2147 in favor and 4

opposed; in November 1964, Unitatis redintegratio was promulgated with a voteof 2137 in favor and 11 opposed, and Lumen gentium with a vote of 2151 in favorand 5 opposed. AS II/6:407; III/8:782–83.

37 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 81.38 On this point, see Stransky, “Holy Diplomacy” 59–60.










nothing of what is true and holy in these religions” (no. 2).39 A sectionspecifically devoted to Islam follows (no. 3), after which appears the state-ment on the Jewish people. Nostra aetate affirms the “spiritual ties which link

the people of the new covenant to the stock of Abraham” (vinculi, quo populus Novi Testamenti cum stirpe Abrahae spiritualiter coniunctus est )(no. 4). It acknowledges that the church has received the revelation of theOld Testament from the people of the ancient covenant, the good olive treeonto which the wild olive branches of the Gentiles have been grafted (Rom11:17–24). The Israelites are the sons and daughters of God to whom “belongthe glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the prom-ises” (Rom 9:4–5), and this covenant is enduring, for “God does not takeback the gifts he bestowed or the choice he made” (no. 4). Although Nostra

aetate includes no explicit disavowal of the term “deicide people,” it empha-sizes that “neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time [of Jesus Christ], norJews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion”(no. 4). It is true, the declaration continues, “that the church is the newpeople of God, yet the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursedas if this followed from holy scripture” (no. 4).

It was, writes Thomas Stransky, founding staff member of Bea’s Secre-tariat for Christian Unity, both too late and too soon for the CatholicChurch to begin the reformulation of its teaching on the Jews: too late

insofar as the nightmare of the Holocaust had already been unleashed inEurope, and too soon in that there had been so little development inCatholic theology on the place of the Jewish people in God’s plan of salvation or the relation of church and synagogue.40 The relationship of Judaism and Christianity, Oesterreicher echoes, was “really the Cinderellaof theology.”41 The scholarly labors that paved the way for the council wereprimarily a work of ressourcement—a theological renewal rooted in Scrip-ture and tradition—and most of this tradition was forged in the context of the polemics of the Christian-Jewish schism.

THE ORIGINS OF LUMEN GENTIUM ’S THEOLOGY OFTHE PEOPLE OF GOD

It was the labor of ressourcement that brought to the council an alterna-tive to the theology of the church as a societas perfecta that had dominated

39 Citations from the documents of the council are from Vatican Council II:Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations, ed. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, N.Y.:

Costello, 1996).40 Stransky, “Holy Diplomacy” 55–58. On the ill-preparedness of the CouncilFathers for theological reflection on Judaism, see also Oesterreicher, New Encoun-ter 157–58.

41 Oesterreicher, “Declaration” 39.










Roman Catholic ecclesiology since the Counter Reformation. In responseto the Reformation’s critique of Catholicism and the eclipse of Christen-dom by the emerging European nation states, the societas perfecta ecclesi-

ology had emphasized the visible and institutional dimensions of theCatholic Church. This approach remained dominant until Vatican II,although there was growing interest in other ecclesiological models. Thetheology of the church as the Mystical Body of Christ had been advancedby both Johann Adam Mo ¨ hler (1796–1838) and the 19th-century Romanschool, which synthesized Scholastic theology with biblical and patristicthemes. The theology of the Mystical Body was also developed by a varietyof 20th-century Catholic theologians (including Romano Guardini, KarlAdam, Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Jean Danie lou, Erich Przywara,

Sebastian Tromp, and Emile Mersch) and Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclicalMystici Corporis Christi. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was a profusion of publications on the theology of the Mystical Body and a surge of interest inthis topic among the Catholic populace.

This was followed in the 1940s and 1950s with a wave of scholarly interestin a theology of the church as the people of God. The church had beendesignated a “people” (laos) in New Testament texts (2 Cor 6:16; Rom9:25–26; Tit 2:14; 1 Pet 2:9–10; Acts 15:14). In the Epistle of Barnabas (ca.70–135 CE), the church is the second of two peoples, destined like Jacob

and Ephraim to become heir to the covenant in a reversal of the typicalpattern of succession.42 Both Origen and Augustine developed reflectionson the church as the people of God, an ecclesiology that continued to play arole throughout the tradition.43 In the first half of the 20th century, scholarssuch as Harold F. Hamilton, Nils A. Dahl, Ernst Ka ¨ semann, and HermannStrathmann initiated the retrieval of this theology, which served the need of Protestant ecumenists for an ecclesiology that would encompass the wholeof the Christian body.44 Within Catholicism, the emphasis amongsome theologians on the history of salvation as the context for theological

42 Epistle of Barnabas, chaps. 13–14, in The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols., LoebClassical Library 24 and 25, ed. and trans. Bart Ehrman (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-vard, 2003) 2:60–63.

43 F. Ledegang, Mysterium Ecclesiae: Images of the Church and Its Members inOrigen (Leuven: University, 2001) 355–511; Joseph Ratzinger, Volk und HausGottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche (Munich: Zink, 1954) 127–87. For asurvey of the theology of the people of God in the tradition, see Max Keller, “VolkGottes” als Kirchenbegriff: Eine Untersuchung zum neueren Versta ndnis (Zu ¨ rich:Benziger, 1970).

44

Harold Francis Hamilton, The People of God: An Inquiry into Christian Ori- gins, 2 vols. (London: Oxford, 1912); Nils A. Dahl, Das Volk Gottes: EineUntersuchung zum Kirchenbewusstsein des Urchristentums, 2 vols. (Oslo: JacobDybwad, 1941); Ernst Ka ¨ semann, Das wandernde Gottesvolk: Eine Untersuchungzum Hebra erbrief (Go ¨ ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1939); Hermann










reflection led to a reaffirmation of the church’s relation to biblical Israeland a recovery of an ecclesiology of the people of God.45 This ecclesiologyserved the developing liturgical movement and Catholic Action, both of

which emphasized that the church is composed of people who respond toGod’s call.46 Catholic contributors to the recovery of a theology of thepeople of God included Mannes Dominikus Koster, Lucien Cerfaux, YvesCongar, Anscar Vonier, and Frank Norris.47 In the 1950s and 1960s, Ger-man scholars, including doctrinal historian Michael Schmaus and JosephRatzinger, contributed to the growing body of literature on the topic,although memories of the way the notion of Volk had been manipulatedby the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s led some to express reservations aboutthis approach.48 Nonetheless, the ecclesiology of the people of God

remained attractive because it expressed the biblical, historical, anthropo-logical, and eschatological dimensions of the church. The people of God,Congar reflected, is a “beautiful notion” with which “the Holy Spirit mustsecretly have inspired everyone . . . sometime between 1937 and 1943.”49

The continuing interest in this ecclesiology culminated in the decision of Vatican II to add the chapter De Populo Dei to what would become Lumen

gentium. The editing of the proposed chapter on the people of Godwas entrusted to a subcommittee on which Congar served together withother periti and bishops. Congar noted in his council diaries that he took

Strathmann, “Laos,” in Theologisches Wo rterbuch zum Neuen Testament , 10 vols.,ed. Gerhard Kittel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1939–1979) 4:29–57.

45 Yves Congar, O.P., “The Church: The People of God,” in The Church andMankind, ed. Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P., Concilium 1 (Glen Rock, N.J.: Paulist,1965) 11–37, at 14.

46 Ibid. 14–15.47 Mannes Dominikus Koster, Ekklesiologie im Werden (Paderborn: Bonifacius,

1940); Koster, Volk Gottes im Wachstum des Glaubens: Himmelfahrt Mariens undGlaubenssinn (Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1950); Lucien Cerfaux, La the ologie de

l’e glise suivant saint Paul (Paris: Cerf, 1942); Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., “Pourquoile Peuple de Dieu doit-il sans cesse se re fomer?” Ire nikon 22 (1948) 365–94;Congar, “La Maison du peuple de Dieu,” Art sacre 1 (1947) 205–220; Congar,

Jalons pour une the ologie du laı cat (Paris: Cerf, 1953) 474–80; Congar, “TheChurch: The People of God”; Anscar Vonier, O.S.B., The People of God (London:Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1937); Frank B. Norris, S.S., God’s Own People: An

Introductory Study of the Church (Baltimore: Helicon, 1962).48 Michael Schmaus, Die Lehre von der Kirche, vol. 3 of Katholische Dogmatik

(Munich: Max Hueber, 1958) 204–39; Joseph Ratzinger, Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche. On hesitations about the expression “people of God” in the aftermath of German history, see the comment by Fergus Kerr, O.P., in

his “Yves Congar and Thomism,” in Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church, ed.Gabriel Flynn (Louvain: Peeters, 2005) 67–97, at 74 n. 11.

49 Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., foreword to Norris, God’s Own People iii–v, at v.These are the very years of the genocide against the Jewish people in Europe,where most of this scholarship is taking place.










responsibility for the first draft of much of sections 9, 13, 16, and 17 of thischapter,50 and the text of the final version of Lumen gentium is consistentwith Congar’s own work.51

Council commentators repeatedly note the significance of the placementof the chapter De Populo Dei between Lumen gentium’s first chapter onthe mystery of the church and the third chapter on the ecclesial hierarchy, astructure that suggests that the church is foundationally composed of all thebaptized prior to any distinction between members of the hierarchy andlaity. Congar believed that the council’s addition of the chapter on thepeople of God was one of the most important decisions made at the coun-cil, a decision that “has the greatest promise for the theological, pastoraland ecumenical future of ecclesiology.”52 In the analysis of Edward

Hahnenberg, “the language of people of God rose in prominence tobecome arguably the most important way of describing the Church presentin [Lumen gentium].”53 But it was a language that had been forged inChristian biblical and theological circles—not in the crucible of Christian-Jewish dialogue—as is evident in the case of Congar himself.

JUDAISM AND CONCILIAR PERITUS YVES CONGAR

Yves Congar was one of the foremost contributors to the ecclesiological

ressourcement that was the theological backbone of Vatican II. As a childin the French Ardennes, Congar enjoyed the companionship of the chil-dren of his parents’ Protestant and Jewish friends. It was ecumenism,however, that would become a major focus of his life’s work, not bridge-building between Christians and Jews.54 His adult years were spent primar-ily at the Saulchoir, the Dominican house of studies situated in Belgiumwhen he first joined the Order of Preachers and later moved to France.At the onset of World War II, Congar joined the French army as a reserveofficer and was captured by German forces and detained from 1940–

1945.55

In the camps of Mainz, Colditz, and Lu ¨ beck, he encountered Jewish

50 Congar, Mon journal du Concile 2:511.51 For Congar’s commentary on Lumen gentium’s theology of the people of God,

see his “The People of God,” in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal , ed. John Miller,C.S.C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1966) 197–207.

52 Ibid. 197.53 Edward P. Hahnenberg, “The Mystical Body of Christ and Communion Eccle-

siology: Historical Parallels,” Irish Theological Quarterly 70 (2005) 3–30, at 15.54

Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., “Preface” to his Dialogue between Christians:Catholic Contributions to Ecumenism, trans. Philip Loretz, S.J. (Westminster, Md.:Newman, 1966) 1–51, at 4.

55 Jean Puyo and Yves Congar, O.P., Jean Puyo interroge le Pe re Congar: Une vie pour la ve rite (Paris: Centurion, 1975) 88–93.










prisoners,56 but despite this proximity to the Shoah, there is scant referencein his writings to the genocide and near-complete destruction of the Jewishcommunities of Europe. In 1954, exiled from France because of Rome’s

displeasure with his work, Congar spent a year at Jerusalem’s E coleBiblique where he wrote The Mystery of the Temple, but there is littleindication in this text of any sustained encounter with the living Judaismof Jerusalem.57 At this time the city was divided; with East Jerusalemunder Jordanian rule, the Dominican E cole Biblique had no contact withthe faculty at Hebrew University.58

Congar was friends with Jesuit Pierre Chaillet, a heroic advocate of children and Jews,59 and Congar does occasionally reference Jewishauthors.60 During the council, he met with the Jewish community of

Strasbourg, who impressed upon him that “the first council afterAuschwitz cannot fail to speak of the Jews.”61 When Complotto contra

la Chiesa was distributed to the assembled bishops, it was Congar whoattempted in vain to secure a formal conciliar denunciation of thebook.62 And when Bea’s subcommission for the Jewish Question addedadditional advisors to prepare a broader statement on the church’s rela-tion to all non-Christians, it was Congar, as we have seen, who advocatedpreserving an explicit rejection of the theology of the Jews as a deicidepeople even if the term “deicide” itself had been disallowed. Nonethe-

less, despite this vitally important contribution to what would becomeNostra aetate, engagement with postbiblical Judaism simply was not oneof Congar’s priorities. “I have never been anti-Semitic,” he told JeanPuyo in an extensive interview. “As I have told you, from my childhood,I have had Jewish friends. But in that era I did not enter into the

56 Ibid. 92–93.57 Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., The Mystery of the Temple or The Manner of God’s

Presence to His Creatures from Genesis to the Apocalypse, trans. Reginald F.Trevett (London: Burns & Oates, 1962).58 Conversation with Thomas F. Stransky, September 16, 2010.59 On Chaillet see Thomas F. O’Meara, O.P., “A French Resistance Hero,”

America 176.18 (May 24, 1997) 12–16.60 He mentions, e.g., Rabbi Kaplan’s critique of the Christian use of the word

“mystery” in reference to Israel. “L’Etat d’Israel dans le dessein de Dieu,” Paroleet Mission (July 2, 1958) 168–87; trans. Philip Loretz, S.J.,“The Religious Signifi-cance of the Restoration of the Jewish State and Nation in the Holy Land,” inCongar, Dialogue between Christians 445–61, at 447.

61 Congar, Mon journal du Concile 1:357.62

Mgr. Ancel was agreeable to the request, but referred Congar to CardinalJoseph-Charles Lefebvre who could make an intervention with more weight. Lefeb-vre in turn referred Congar to Cardinal Achille Lie nart, who told him that thecouncil could not get into the practice of responding to all the literature that wasdistributed in the periphery. Mon journal du Concile 1:308–9.










profound religious and even dogmatic depths of the Jewish question inthe manner of someone like [Jacques] Maritain.”63

Absent a sustained engagement with the Jewish tradition or the Shoah,

Congar’s preconciliar theology is notable in that it affirms the enduringcharacter of God’s election of the Jewish people in language that antici-pates Nostra aetate.64 In other respects, Congar perpetuates long-standingChristian approaches. The Wide World My Parish: Salvation and Its Prob-

lems is his most sustained reflection on the relation of the church to non-Christians.65 In this collection of essays, he speaks for the most part in verygeneral terms of “the others,” a broad category that includes members of non-Christian religions, Jews, unbelievers, and anyone who did not or hasnot had the opportunity to hear the gospel. He writes specifically of Jews in

a reflection on the character necessary to recognize truth through sign andparable:

The refusal by the “Jews”—in St. John’s sense of the word—always appears as arefusal to go any farther, a refusal to re-examine accepted, well-tried, establishedpositions. “It is known . . . , it is settled. . . .” Openness to, acceptance of, the GoodNews, is, on the other hand, a positive response to an invitation to “come out of oneself.” It is always a matter of choosing something—more exactly, someone—inpreference to the egotistical self.66

This use of Jews or Judaism as a negative foil against which to articulate apositive Christian identity is common practice in the Christian tradition, aconvention employed at several other points in Congar’s work.67 AlthoughWide World My Parish offers an original interpretation of the axiom

63 Puyo, Jean Puyo interroge le Pe re Congar 93.64 The question, Congar wrote, “is governed by the biblical texts affirming that

God will not repent of his gift and that ‘The Lord will not reject his people’(Ps 93:14; cf. Rom 9:6; 11:26, 27, 29)” (“Religious Significance of the Restorationof the Jewish State” 448).

65

Yves Congar, O.P., The Wide World, My Parish: Salvation and Its Problems ,trans. Donald Attwater (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961).66 Ibid. 108–9.67 For example, in his major work on the character of true reform in the church,

Congar emphasizes that the church must guard against two dangers, which henames pharisaı sme and la tentation de devenir “synagogue.” Pharisaı sme means toallow something that should be a means of spiritual life to become an end in itself,and “ synagogue” names the temptation to absolutize a dated or partial form of religious life in a manner that blocks or obfuscates the ongoing development of God’s work. Congar uses examples from Christian history to illustrate both temp-tations. Nonetheless, the terms pharisaı sme and “ synagogue” used to name these

pejorative paradigms have Jewish connotations. Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., Vraie et fausse re forme dans l’e glise (Paris: Cerf, 1950) 155–95. Catherine Clifford has notedthe problem with this approach; see Michael Attridge, “Yves Congar EcumenicalColloquium,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 59 (2004)121–23, at 122.










“outside the church no salvation,” which Congar explicates as a statementabout the indispensability of the church in God’s plan of redemption ratherthan a statement about the status of any given individual before God,68

there is only a hint of the dramatic changes in Catholic approaches toJudaism that will take place in the decades after the council.

What were the consequences of Congar’s posture toward Judaism for histheology of the people of God? In “The Church: The People of God,”Congar emphasized that one of the primary reasons the people of God issuch an important ecclesiological image is that it expresses the continuitybetween the church and Israel.69 But by “Israel,” notes Erik Borgman, “henot so much means the Jewish people of his time, but Israel as it appears inthe Old—or First—Testament.”70 Linking the church to biblical Israel

through a theology of the people of God enabled Congar to stress that thechurch is not only an institution that mediates sacramental grace but also ahistorical, social, and covenantal body with an eschatological vocation towitness to God’s holy name.71 The link to biblical Israel also servedCongar’s emphasis on the corporate character of the church, and he repeat-edly referenced Wheeler Robinson’s work on the corporate realism of thetheology of the Hebrew people in Old Testament texts.72

The corporate people of Israel prefigure the church of Jesus Christ. “Thehistory of the people of Israel,” Congar explained, “ : : : has a typological

value for the people of God which is the Church.”73 His appropriation of

68 Regarding Congar’s position on salvation outside the church, see Francis A.Sullivan, S.J., Salvation outside the Church? Tracing the History of the CatholicResponse (New York: Paulist, 1992) 129–30; See also the essays in Yves Congar:Theologian of the Church, including Thomas F. O’Meara, O.P., “Yves Congar:Theologian of Grace in a Wide World” 371–99; Stephen Fields, S.J., “Mediatingthe Non-Christian Religions: Congar, Balthasar, Nature and Grace” 401–26;Terrence Merrigan, “The Appeal to Yves Congar in Recent Catholic Theology of

Religions: The Case of Jacques Dupuis” 427–57.69 Congar, “The Church: The People of God” 19.70 Erik Borgman, “The Ambivalent Role of the ‘People of God’ in Twentieth

Century Catholic Theology: The Examples of Yves Congar and EdwardSchillebeeckx,” in A Holy People: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on ReligiousCommunal Identity, ed. Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz (Leiden: Brill, 2006)263–77, at 265.

71 Congar, “The Church: The People of God” 19–21.72 For one example of Congar’s use of Robinson, see “Perspectives chre tiennes

sur la vie personnelle et la vie collective,” in Socialisation et personne humaine:Compte rendu in extenso, Semaine sociale de Grenoble 1960 (Lyon: Chronique

sociale de France, 1961) 195–221, at 201.73 Yves Congar, “Conside rations sur le schisme d’Israe ¨ l dans la perspective desdivisions chre tiennes,” Proche-Orient chre tien 1 (1951) 169–91; trans. Philip Loretz,S.J., as “Some Reflections on the Schism of Israel in the Perspective of ChristianDivisions,” Dialogue between Christians 160–83, at 167.










the typological tradition was complemented by his use of the work of SwissProtestant Wilhelm Vischer, who described the people of Israel as a pars

pro toto, a sacramental bearer of a promise that will later be extended to all

humanity.74 This theological framework accounts for the relation betweenbiblical Israel and the church but leaves limited place for recognition of thecontributions of postbiblical rabbinic Judaism to the living history of thepeople of God. This is evident in Congar’s reflection “The Religious Sig-nificance of the Restoration of the Jewish State and Nation in the HolyLand” offered in 1955 at the Parisian convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion. Congar affirmed that the constitution of Israel as God’s people is anessential part of the mystery of God’s plan of salvation.75 Since the comingof the Messiah, however, the people of God is the church, and there has

been a “transference to her of the privileges and characteristics of the trueIsrael.”76 The church is the new people of God in the biblical sense of kainos rather than neos—“new” in the sense of a renewal of the life of asubject rather than a substitution of one subject by another. “The Church is

Israel, the ‘true’ Israel, the inheritor of the promises which are henceforthregistered to its advantage.”77 This does not abrogate God’s promises tothe original subject of election, for God does not repent of God’s gifts (Ps93:14; Rom 9:6; 11:26, 27, 29) in spite of the trespass of the Jews (Rom11:12). Nonetheless, “the dispensation of Moses is entirely superseded as a

religious re gime” by a new dispensation of a quality different from theold—a religion of the true circumcision not of the flesh but of the Spirit.78

The Jewish people are invited to a renewed and qualitatively superior wayof life in the church, a tree onto which has been grafted whatever was validin ancient Israel.79

REVISITING LUMEN GENTIUM AFTER FORTY-FIVE YEARSOF CATHOLIC-JEWISH DIALOGUE

Lumen gentium’s chapter “The People of God” to which Congar con-tributed so much begins with the affirmation that God desires to savemen and women not as individuals but as a people. God thereforeestablished a covenant with the people Israel and instructed them inholiness. This covenant is a preparation and figure of the new and perfectcovenant promised through the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 31:31–34) and

74 Yves Congar, O.P., “The Old Testament as a Witness to Christ,” in TheRevelation of God, trans. A. Manson and L. C. Sheppard (New York: Herder &

Herder, 1968) 8–9. The reference is to Wilhelm Vischer, Das Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments (Zollikon: Evangelisher, 1946).

75 Congar, “Religious Significance of the Restoration of the Jewish State” 445–46.76 Ibid. 448. 77 Ibid.78 Ibid. 448–49. 79 Ibid.










instituted in the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 11:25) who calls “a peopletogether made up of Jews and Gentiles which would be one, notaccording to the flesh but in the Spirit, and it would be the new People

of God” (no. 9).80 Christ is the head of this new messianic people whoselaw is love and whose destiny is the kingdom of God, begun on earth andbrought to perfection at the end of time when creation is free fromcorruption. All women and men are called to the catholic unity of thepeople of God which prefigures and promotes universal peace (no. 13).The Catholic faithful, catechumens, and other Christians belong to thepeople of God in varying ways (variis modis pertinent ); those who,possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept the entire structure of the societyof the church and all the means of salvation are fully incorporated into

the new people of God; catechumens moved by the Spirit who explicitlydesire incorporation are by that wish made part of the church; and thechurch is also joined (coniunctam) to baptized Christians who do notprofess the faith in its entirety or have not preserved communion underthe successor of Peter (nos. 14–15). Persons who have not yet acceptedthe gospel do not belong to the people of God but are in various wayscalled and ordained to it (ad Populum Dei diversis rationibus ordinantur )(no. 16; see also no. 13).81 First among these are the Jewish people “towhom the covenants and promises were made, and from whom Christ

was born in the flesh (cf. Rom 9:4–5), a people in virtue of their electionbeloved for the sake of the fathers, for God never regrets his gifts or hiscall (cf. Rom 11:28–29)” (no. 16).

Eleven months after the promulgation of Lumen gentium on November21, 1964, Vatican II approved the declaration Nostra aetate, which encour-aged biblical and theological discussions between Christians and Jewsin order to foster mutual understanding and appreciation (no. 4). A flour-ishing of initiatives followed. In 1974, Pope Paul VI established the Com-mission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews; its

statements include: Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the

80 Stransky notes that the council deliberately capitalized the term Populus here,an intention that is not reflected in Flannery’s English edition of the council docu-ments (conversation with Stransky, September 16, 2010). In this and other directcitations of Lumen gentium, I follow the capitalization of the original Latin text.

81 Although not noted in Lumen gentium, the use of the term ordinari to describethe relation of non-Christians to the church has precedent in Pius XII’s encyclicalMystici Corporis (1943), which stated that those who do not belong to the churchare “oriented toward it by a certain unconscious desire and wish” (inscio quodam

desiderio ac voto ad mysticum redemptoris corpus ordinari). (Mystici Corporis, Actaapostolicae sedis 35 [1943] 243). On the distinct manner in which the term ordinariin used in Mystici Corporis and Lumen gentium, see Jacques Dupuis, S.J., Toward aChristian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979) 348–49;Congar, “The People of God” 204.










Conciliar Declaration “Nostra Aetate” (no. 4) (1974) and Notes on theCorrect Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesisin the Roman Catholic Church (1985).82 Through the International Catho-

lic Jewish Liaison Committee (ICJLC), the Commission conducts dialogueswith the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations(IJCIC). The ICJLC has issued declarations on anti-Semitism, the family,the environment, the protection of religious freedom and holy sites, educa-tion in Catholic and Jewish seminaries and schools of theology, justice andcharity, and health care and HIV/AIDS.83 Pope John Paul II advancedCatholic-Jewish relations with a number of important speeches and initia-tives that fostered trust between the Catholic Church and the Jewish com-munity.84 In 1993, the Holy See established diplomatic relations with the

state of Israel.85 The bishops of France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy,Poland, Switzerland, the United States, and other nations have madeimportant statements on Catholic-Jewish relations.86 The Sisters of OurLady of Sion, the community to whom Congar gave his address on Israel,have moved from their founding commitment to work for the conversionof the Jews to the position that “our vocation gives us a particular respon-sibility to promote understanding and justice for the Jewish community,and to keep alive in the Church the consciousness that in some mysteriousway, Christianity is linked to Judaism from its origin to its final destiny.”87

Catholic universities have established institutes for Catholic-Jewish learning,and theologians such as Gregory Baum, Mary Boys, Philip Cunningham,Manfred Deselaers, Eugene Fisher, Hanspeter Heinz, John Pawlikowski,and many others have built relationships with members of the Jewish com-munity and engaged in theological exchange of a character and quality

82 See http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations- jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19741201_nostra-aetate_en.html; and http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrs

tuni_doc_19820306_jews-judaism_en.html (all URLs cited in this article wereaccessed on May 23, 2011).83 See appendix 2 of Catholic Church and the Jewish People 201–22.84 Many of these texts are reprinted in John Paul II, Spiritual Pilgrimage: Texts

on Jews and Judaism 1979–1995, ed. Eugene J. Fisher and Leon Klenicki (NewYork: Crossroad, 1995). For theological reflection on his legacy, see John Paul II and the Jewish People: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue, ed. David G. Dalin and Mat-thew Levering (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).

85 The “Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel, December 30, 1993” is included as appendix 4 in Catholic Church and the

Jewish People 233–39.86

Some of these statements are available at http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/cjrelations/backgroundresources/documents/catholic.html.

87 The 1984 Constitution of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, cited in Mary C.Boys, Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding (New York: Paulist, 2000) 21.










unprecedented before Vatican II.88 Biblical scholars have emphasized theJewish faith of Jesus Christ89 and the complexity of the process by whichrabbinic Judaism and Christianity eventually became two distinct religious

communities in the aftermath of Rome’s destruction of the Temple in 70CE.90 Jews, in turn, despite the painful memories of their history, haveshared their stories and traditions and opened themselves to dialogue withChristians. In September 2000, an interdenominational group of leadingRabbis and Jewish scholars published Dabru Emet (“To Speak the Truth”),a statement on Christians and Christianity that acknowledged the dramaticchanges that have taken place in Christian approaches to Judaism andoffered in response a reflection on the possibility of a new relationship.91

These developments have taken Catholic-Jewish relations to a point

beyond their state in 1963–65. There is today in the Catholic Church:(1) an affirmation of the enduring character of God’s covenant with thepeople of Israel who are irrevocably part of the people of God; (2) a spiritof remorse for historic sins of Christians against the Jewish people; (3) agrowing appreciation for the contributions of postbiblical rabbinic Judaismto theology, spirituality, liturgy, and ethics; and (4) a reconsideration of some of the theological dichotomies that have shaped Christian under-standings of our relationship to Judaism. Below I address each of thesepoints and reflect on their significance for a theology of the people of God

that takes these developments into account.

Enduring Character of God’s Covenant withthe People Israel, Irrevocably Part of the People of God

Both Lumen gentium and Nostra aetate invoke Paul’s letter to theRomans, which states that the Jewish people are “in virtue of their election

88 For testimony of some of these scholars, see Faith Transformed: Christian

Encounters with Jews and Judaism, ed. John C. Merkle (Collegeville, Minn.: Litur-gical, 2003). Hanspeter Heinz shares a personal reflection in “‘Your Privilege: Youhave Jewish Friends’: Michael Signer’s Hermeneutics of Friendship,” in Christ Jesusand the Jewish People Today, ed. Philip A. Cunningham et al. (Grand Rapids,Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011) 1–13.

89 See, e.g., John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus,Anchor Bible Reference Library, 4 vols. (vols. 1–3: New York: Doubleday, 1991,1994, 2004; vol. 4: New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 2009).

90 See, e.g., Judith M. Lieu, Neither Jew nor Greek? Constructing Early Chris-tianity (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2002); Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Parti-tion of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004); James

D. G. Dunn, The Parting of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity, 2nd ed. (London: SCM, 2006).

91 The statement that originally appeared in the New York Times is reprintedtogether with scholarly essays in Christianity in Jewish Terms, ed. Tikva Frymer-Kensky et al. (Westview, Colo.: Westview, 2000).










beloved for the sake of the fathers, for God never regrets his gifts or his call(cf. Rom 11:28–29)” (Lumen gentium no. 16; Nostra aetate no. 4). Paul’stheology of a personal God whose gifts and call are freely given without

regret (ametamele ta gar ta kharismata kai he kle sis tou theou) (Rom 11:29)is expressed in the NRSV with the words, “the gifts and the calling of Godare irrevocable,” and this terminology has been employed in English trans-lations of papal statements that cite this passage. In an important 1980address in Mainz, Pope John Paul II referred to the Jewish audience as“brothers and sisters” and spoke of a dialogue between “the people of Godof the Old Covenant, never revoked by God [cf. Rom 11:29], and that of the New Covenant.”92 Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the Pauline theologyof God’s irrevocable gift and call when he visited the synagogue in Rome in

January 2010.93

How precisely God’s enduring covenant with the people Israel and thenew covenant in Jesus Christ are related are matters of ongoing discus-sion.94 Is there one covenant or two? How are we to interpret a biblicaltradition that includes not only Romans 11:29 but also Hebrews 8:13, whichstates that the old covenant is growing aged ( ge raskon) and near vanishing(aphanismou)? Should Christians and Jews mutually encourage each otherto deepen our fidelity to our own faith traditions, or should Christiansencourage Jews to become Christian, given our conviction that all creation

is redeemed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and

92 John Paul II, “Address to the Jewish Community–West Germany,” November17, 1980, in Spiritual Pilgrimage 14–15.

93 Benedict XVI, Address at the Synagogue of Rome, January 17, 2010, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2010/january/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100117_sinagoga_en.html.

94 For historical surveys of Christian theologies of the covenant with Israel, seeSteven J. McMichael, “The Covenant in Patristic and Medieval Christian Theol-

ogy,” in Two Faiths, One Covenant?Jewish and Christian Identity in the Presence of the Other , ed. Eugene B. Korn and John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M. (Lanham, Md.:Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) 45–64; Jennifer A. Harris, “Enduring Covenant in theChristian Middle Ages,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 44 (2009) 563–86. Sourceson the contemporary discussion include David J. Bolton, “Catholic-Jewish Dia-logue: Contesting the Covenants,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45 (2010) 37–60;Mary C. Boys, Has God Only One Blessing?; Boys, ed., Seeing Judaism Anew:Christianity’s Sacred Obligation (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); CarlE. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., Jews and Christians: People of God (GrandRapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003); Cardinal Avery Dulles, “The Covenant withIsrael,” First Things 157 (November 2005) 16–21; Norbert Lohfink, The Covenant

Never Revoked: Biblical Reflections on Christian-Jewish Dialogue (Mahwah, N.J.:Paulist, 1991); Eugene B. Korn and John T. Pawlikowski, eds., Two Faiths, OneCovenant?; Didier Pollefeyt, ed., Jews and Christians, Rivals or Partners for theKingdom of God? In Search of an Alternative for the Theology of Substitution(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997).










the gift of the Holy Spirit?95 These questions are not new, and in theChristian tradition we can find practices that range from forced baptismsof Jews to an acceptance of the Jewish people rooted in Augustine’s posi-

tion that the Jews have a specific role to play in salvation history even afterthe incarnation.96 Today, we ask questions about the relationship of Jewsand Christians in a new context, and there is not yet consensus as to theirresolution. “We are still very far away from a comprehensive Catholictheology of Judaism, : : :” explained Cardinal Walter Kasper in his formercapacity as president of the Commission of the Holy See for ReligiousRelations with the Jews. “This means that the question of the theologicalrelationship between Judaism and Christianity remains unsolved.”97

95 Different approaches to these questions are evident in the discussions sur-rounding Reflections on Covenant and Mission, the statement of a consultationbetween representatives of the National Council of Synagogues and scholars whoserved as an advisory group to the Committee on Ecumenical and InterreligiousAffairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). See Reflec-tions on Covenant and Mission, August 12, 2002, http://www.jcrelations.net/en/?item=966; Avery Dulles, “Covenant and Mission,” America 187.12 (October 21,2002) 8–11; Mary C. Boys, Philip A. Cunningham, and John T. Pawlikowski,“Theology’s ‘Sacred Obligation’: A Reply to Cardinal Avery Dulles,” America

187.12 (October 21, 2002) 12–16; USCCB, Committee on Doctrine and Ecumenicaland Interreligious Affairs, “A Note on Ambiguities Contained in ‘Reflections onCovenant and Mission,’” Origins 39 (2009) 113–16; USCCB, Statement of Princi-ples for Catholic-Jewish Dialogue, October 2, 2009, http://www.usccb.org/seia/StatementofPrinciples.pdf; American Jewish Leaders, “Letter to U.S. BishopsExpressing Concern about the Future of Interfaith Dialogue,” Origins 39 (2009)209–10; John Borelli, “Troubled Waters,” America 202.5 (February 22, 2010) 20–23.

96 Augustine believed that Jews should be protected, for “by the evidence of their own Scriptures they bear witness for us that we have not fabricated theprophecies about Christ. . . . It is in order to give this testimony which, in spite of themselves, they supply for our benefit by their possession and preservation of

those books, that they themselves are dispersed among all nations, wherever theChristian Church spreads” (De Civitate Dei 18.46 [CCSL 48.644–45]; The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson [Penguin: Harmonsworth, 1972] 827–28.) See alsoPaula Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei: Augustine on Jews and Juda-ism,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 [1995] 299–324). More recently, theCommission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews has affirmedthe ongoing role of the Jewish people in the economy of redemption, stating that“the permanence of Israel (while so many ancient peoples have disappeared with-out trace) is a historic fact and a sign to be interpreted within God’s design” (Noteson the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesisin the Roman Catholic Church [1985] VI.1, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/

pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19820306_jews- judaism_en.html).

97 Cardinal Walter Kasper, “Paths Taken and Enduring Questions in Jewish-Christian Relations Today: Thirty Years of the Commission for Religious Relationswith the Jews,” in The Catholic Church and the Jewish People 3–11, at 10.










Reconsidering Lumen gentium’s theology of the people of God in light of Nostra aetate and the subsequent postconciliar discussion can provide aconstructive framework in which the conversation about this relationship

can proceed. Lumen gentium, as we have seen, distinguished those whobelong ( pertinent ) to the new people of God from those who are ordainedto (ordinantur ad) this people, and the conciliar constitution placed Jews inthe latter category together with others who have not yet accepted thegospel. Nostra aetate, promulgated eleven months after Lumen gentium,describes the church’s relation to the Jewish people in terms that cansupport the position that the Jews do in fact belong ( pertinent ) to thepeople of God. The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions describes the Jewish people as “that good olive tree

onto which the wild olive branches of the Gentiles have been grafted (seeRom 11:17–24)” and emphasizes “the spiritual ties which link the people of the new covenant to the stock of Abraham (vinculi, quo populus Novi

Testamenti cum stirpe Abrahae spiritualiter coniunctus est )” (no. 4).98 Afeminine form of the masculine singular Latin participle coniunctus is usedin Lumen gentium to describe the relation of non-Catholic Christians to thechurch: although non-Catholics do not profess the faith in its entirety, theybelong ( pertinent ) to the people of God, and the church is united(coniunctam) to them through faith in God the Father and Christ the Son,

the rule of Scripture, baptism, and other sacraments. Congar explains:

Regarding non-Catholic Christians the Council formally avoids the expressionordinari ad, nor does it speak of belonging in (implicit) desire, voto; it uses the word

98 The placement of this discussion of the special character of the relation of thechurch and the Jewish people within a declaration on non-Christian religions is impre-cise, although understandable given the historical genesis of Nostra aetate. Ratzingercommented in 1966 that the decision to develop an initial Declaration on the Jews intothe Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions “may not

have been the best thing to do.” Citing Romans 9, he explained: “These words givethe Jews a special place in salvation history and in theology, an image which must notbe clouded over” (Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II , trans.Henry Traub, Gerard Thormann, and Werner Barzel [Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1966]157). More recently, he stated that “our dialogue with the Jews is situated on adifferent level than that in which we engage with other religions. The faith witnessedto by the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament for Christians) is not another religion to us,but is the foundation of our faith (non e un’altra religione, ma il fondamento dellanostra fede)” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “L’eredita ` di Abramo dono di Natale,”L’Osservatore Romano 140.299 [December 29, 2000] 1). Similarly, Kasper stated inhis former capacity as president of the Commission of the Holy See for Religious

Relations with the Jews that “Catholic-Jewish relations are not a subset of interreligious relations in general, neither in theory [n]or in practice” (Walter Cardi-nal Kasper, “Dominus Iesus,” address at the 17th meeting of the International Cath-olic-Jewish Liaison Committee, New York, May 1, 2001, http://www.bc.edu/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/articles/kasper_ dominus_iesus.htm.)










coniunctam, “to be united.” The idea is that of a real but imperfect communion bymeans of one or other of the elements that make up the goods of the Covenantentrusted to God’s People, the totality of which is required in order that there be

complete or pure and simple communion.99

Through elements of the goods of the Covenant, the church is also united(coniunctam) to the Jewish people.

Clearly Jews and Christians are not one people of God in Lumen

gentium’s sense of a people with a common sacramental life with Christas its head and organs of visible social unity.100 There are fundamentaltheological and liturgical differences between Jews and Christians, andwe remain divided by the schism that took place when the ChristianChurch and rabbinic Judaism emerged as two distinct communities in

the aftermath of Rome’s destruction of the Temple. Nonetheless, Chris-tians and Jews share in the covenant faith of the one God of Israel. Weunderstand and practice this covenant faith in different ways, and in thissense we are a divided people who bear the mark of our schism. Yet,writes Kasper, if we take the theology of Nostra aetate seriously, “thenpost-biblical Judaism and the church are not two covenant peoples: theyare the one covenant people.”101 The ongoing discussion of questions incovenantal theology should therefore proceed within the context of aconversation between Christians and Jews working together as a people

of faith who each belong ( pertinet ) in a distinct way to the new peopleof God.102

Remorse for the Sins of Christians against the Jewish People

Christians and Jews are a people of God divided not only by fundamen-tal theological and liturgical differences but also by a tragic history of polemics, ostracism, and violence. Despite Isaac’s testimony to Pope John

XXIII, neither Lumen gentium nor Nostra aetate acknowledged the way inwhich Christians have fractured the life of the people of God through our

99 Congar, “The People of God” 204.100 On the continuity and difference between the people Israel and the church

within the theology of Lumen gentium, see Aloys Grillmeier, “The People of God,”in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II 1:153–85.

101 Walter Cardinal Kasper, foreword to Christ Jesus and the Jewish PeopleToday x–xviii, at xv.

102 A recent example of this kind of conversation is the Consultation on Jewish-

Catholic Relations: Interpreting Scripture and Current Self-Understanding, a gath-ering of 30 Catholic and Jewish scholars convened at Georgetown University byJohn Borelli, Special Assistant to the President [of Georgetown University] forInterreligious Initiatives, on February 28, 2010. Borelli discussed the theologicalneed for this gathering in “Troubled Waters” 23.










anti-Jewish practices and theologies of contempt.103 Archbishop Le on-Arthur-Auguste Elchinger of Strasbourg is among those who called on theconciliar assembly publically to recognize these wrongs and ask the Jewish

people for forgiveness.104 The painful history of our relationship includescanon 50 of the Council of Elvira (ca. 304), which states that any cleric ormember of the faithful who has taken food with Jews should make amendsby abstaining from communion.105 The Fourth Lateran Council (1215)decreed that Jews are not to hold public office, and that they must weardistinctive clothing to enable Christians to limit social relations and avoid a“damnable mixing.”106 Christian rulers expelled the Jewish populationfrom England in 1290, from France in 1306, from Spain in 1492, and fromPortugal in 1496.107 In 1555, Pope Paul V segregated Jews in Rome within a

ghetto, a practice that continued for more than three centuries.108 Through-out the second millennium of Christian history, theologies that blamedJews for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and false allegations of ritual mur-der and host desecration were used to justify mob violence and pogromsagainst Jews in hundreds of communities throughout the Rhineland (1096);Westphalia (1292); Austria (1294); Franconia (1298); Alsace, Austria,Styria, and Swabia (1336–38); Poland and the Ukraine (1648–49); Russia(1881); and other locales.109 Given this history, the U.S. Conference

103 For surveys of this history, see Anna Foa, “The Difficult Apprenticeship of Diversity,” in Catholic Church and the Jewish People 41–53; Edward H. Flannery,The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, rev. ed. (1965;New York: Paulist, 1985); Robert Michael, A History of Catholic Antisemitism: TheDark Side of the Church (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

104 AS III/3:28; Miccoli, “Two Sensitive Issues” 160; Oesterreicher, New Encoun-ter 207. Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle of Washington, D.C., and two others madesimilar recommendations. See Oesterreicher, New Encounter 201 and 229.

105 Charles Joseph Hefele, ed., A History of the Christian Councils from the Orig-inal Documents, trans. William R. Clark, 5 vols. (1894; New York: AMS, 1972) 1:159.

106

Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols.(Washington: Georgetown, 1990) 1:266–67.107 See Robin R. Mundill, England’s Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion,

1262–1290 (1998; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 2002); William ChesterJordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1989) 214–38; Joseph Pe rez,History of a Tragedy: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, trans. Lysa Hochroth(Urbana: University of Illinois, 2007); Francois Soyer, The Persecution of the Jewsand Muslims of Portugal: King Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (1496–7)(Leiden: Brill, 2007).

108 Kenneth R. Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 1555–1593 (New

York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1977); Stow, Theater of Acculturation:The Roman Ghetto in the 16th Century (Seattle: University of Washington, 2001).

109 See, e.g., Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Cru- sades (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 2006) 100–106; Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The First Crusade and the Persecution of the Jews,” in Persecution and










of Catholic Bishops acknowledged that although Christian antagonismtoward Jews alone does not account for the Shoah, it “did lay the ground-work for racial, genocidal anti-Semitism by stigmatizing not only Judaism

but Jews themselves for opprobrium and contempt.”110 On March 12, 2000,the first Lenten season of the new millennium began at St. Peter’s Basilicawith a litany of confession that included remorse for “sins against thepeople of Israel.”111 Two weeks later, Pope John Paul II tucked a prayerinto a crevice in the Western Wall in Jerusalem that read:

God of our fathers, / you chose Abraham and his descendants / to bring Your nameto the nations: / we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those / who in the courseof history / have caused these children of Yours to suffer / and asking Your forgive-ness / we wish to commit ourselves / to genuine brotherhood / with the people of the

Covenant.112

“We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” the 1998 statement of the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews,

Toleration: Papers Read at the Twenty-Second Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Third Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. W. J. Sheils(Padstow: Basil Blackwell, 1984) 51–64; Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narra-

tive Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 1999)48–54; William B. Helmreich, foreword to Nathan Hannover, Abyss of Despair (Yeven metzulah): The Famous 17th Century Chronicle Depicting Jewish Life inRussia and Poland during the Chmielnicki Massacres of 1648–1649, trans. Abra-ham J. Mesch (New Brunswick, Conn.: Transaction, 1983) 2; I. MichaelAronson, Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms inRussia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1990); Edward H. Judge, Easter inKishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom (New York: New York University, 1992) 40–44; Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in

Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 2001) 65.110 Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of

Catholic Bishops, Catholic Teaching on the Shoah: Implementing the Holy See’s WeRemember (Washington: USCCB, 2001) 10.111 “Universal Prayer: Confession of Sins and Asking for Forgiveness,” Origins

29 (2000) 645–48, at 647. In preparation for this Lenten prayer, the InternationalTheological Commission prepared the statement, “Memory and Reconciliation:The Church and Faults of the Past,” Origins 29 (2000) 625–44. On the topicof social ecclesial sin, see also John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Reconciliationand Penance (December 2, 1984) no. 16, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/

john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_02121984_reconciliatio-et-paenitentia_en.html; Bradford E. Hinze, “Ecclesial Repentance and the Demandsof Dialogue,” Theological Studies 61 (2000) 207–38; Michael B. McGarry, “Apol-

ogy, Regret, and Intellectual Humility: An Interreligious Consideration,” inLearned Ignorance 210–24.

112 The text of the prayer is available at http://www.bc.edu/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/documents/catholic/johnpaulii/westernwall.htm.










acknowledged Christian complicity in the Shoah, while carefully distin-guishing the church itself from her sinful sons and daughters.113 Critics of this distinction argue that it fails to account for the institutionalized char-

acter of anti-Judaism in the Catholic tradition, while defenders underscorethe sinless and divine foundation of the church that is the Mystical Body of Christ.114 Yet insofar as the church is not only Christ’s Mystical Body butalso the people of God, Congar emphasized, it is composed of sinful peo-ple. “As Dom Anscar Vonier saw so well this [the people of God] is thelocus in the Church where there are failures and sins, the struggle fora more perfect fidelity, the permanent need for reform and for the effortthis involves.”115 The church, Ratzinger wrote in his council commentary,“as the People of God on pilgrimage, is also always the Church under the

sign of weakness and sin. It is a Church in continual need of God’s forgivingkindness.”116

Growing Appreciation for the Contributions of Rabbinic Judaism

In this ongoing pilgrimage of the people of God, there has been inpostconciliar Catholicism a growing appreciation for the contributions of rabbinic Judaism to theology, spirituality, liturgy, and ethics. In the past,notes David Neuhaus, attitudes toward Jews were shaped largely by narra-

tives of Old Testament heroes and villains, New Testament accounts of those Jews who handed Jesus over to the Romans for crucifixion, andtheological constructs of the blind and wandering Jew. “The paradigmchange after the Council,” he continues, “insisted that the imaginary, tex-tual, and often mythic Jew of Catholic traditional teaching had to make

113 Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews, “WeRemember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” Origins 27 (1998) 669–75. Various other

statements are collected in Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs,National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholics Remember the Holocaust (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1998).

114 Critiques include “Reflections on the Shoah: The Catholic Church’s Share of the Blame and Responsibility,” by the discussion group “Jews and Christians” spon-sored by the Central Committee of German Catholics, in Coming Together for theSake of God: Contributions to Jewish-Christian Dialogue from Post-Holocaust Ger-many, ed. Hanspeter Heinz and Michael A. Signer (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical,2007) 69–77. Statements of support include Avery Dulles, S.J., “Commentary,” inThe Holocaust, Never to Be Forgotten: Reflections on the Holy See’s Document WeRemember (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 2001) 47–72, at 56–58.

115

Congar, “The Church: People of God” 23–24. See also ibid. 202; Congar,“Richesse et ve rite d’une vision de l’E glise comme ‘peuple de Dieu,’” in Le Concilede Vatican II : Son E ´ glise, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ (Paris: Beauchesne,1984) 109–22, at 116.

116 Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II 77.










way for the real Jew, the neighbor of the Catholic in a world composed of many neighbors.”117 As mythic stereotypes give way to real encounterswith persons of a deep Jewish faith, the Catholic Church has begun to

recognize postbiblical Judaism’s singular contributions to the ongoing lifeof the people of God. The spiritual heritage of the people Israel, statedJohn Paul II, is a “living heritage, which must be understood and preservedin its depth and richness.”118 The Commission of the Holy See for Reli-gious Relations with the Jews speaks of Israel’s “continuous spiritual fecun-dity, in the rabbinical period, in the Middle Ages and in modern times,”119

and the U.S. Bishops’ Conference encourages homilists to “be free to drawon Jewish sources (rabbinic, medieval, and modern) in expounding themeaning of the Hebrew Scriptures and the apostolic writings.”120 In 2001,

the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC) recognized the legitimacy of Jewish readings of the scriptural texts common to the Jewish and Christiancanons. Even the “Jewish messianic expectation,” they noted, “is not invain. It can become for us Christians a powerful stimulant to keep alive theeschatological dimension of our faith.”121

In this light, it is appropriate to revisit Lumen gentium’s typologicalaccount of God’s covenant with the Jewish people as “a preparation andfigure of that new and perfect covenant which was to be ratified in Christ”(no. 9). From apostolic times, as the Commission of the Holy See for

Religious Relations with the Jews notes, the problem of the relationbetween the Old and New Testaments has been resolved by means of typology.122 And yet, the Commission continues, “typology : : : makesmany people uneasy and is perhaps the sign of a problem unresolved.”123

This unease results in part from our deepening appreciation for Judaism asa living tradition that continued to develop in the centuries after the Jew-ish-Christian schism. The biblical accounts of the people Israel in the Lawand the Prophets prefigure the church as a new people of God, but they are

117 David M. Neuhaus, “Engaging the Jewish People: Forty Years since Nostra Aetate,” in Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study, ed.Karl Josef Becker and Ilaria Morali (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2010) 395–413, at 398–99.

118 John Paul II, “Address to the Jewish Community,” in Spiritual Pilgrimage 14.119 Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism VI.1.120 Committee on the Liturgy, USCCB, God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guide-

lines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching (1988)no. 31, http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/godsmercy.shtml.

121 PBC, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible(Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002) no. 21.

122

Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism II.3. On theorigins of the typological tradition, see Jean Danie lou, From Shadows to Reality:Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, trans. Wulstan Hibberd (Westmin-ster, Md.: Newman, 1960).

123 Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism II.3.










also the root of Judaism’s own living tradition, which reads texts concerningthe people Israel through the Oral Torah and centuries of liturgical andrabbinic interpretation.124 The PBC affirms the method of typological exe-

gesis properly practiced.125 At the same time, it recognizes the Jewishreading of Scripture as “a possible one” from which Christians have muchto learn.126 Multiple postconciliar affirmations of Judaism’s ongoing spiri-tual vitality imply that Lumen gentium’s typological theology of the rela-tion of ancient Israel and the church should be supplemented withtheologies that account for the ongoing lived relationship betweenpostbiblical rabbinic Judaism and the Christian church.

Reconsideration of Dichotomous Theologiesof the Christian-Jewish Relationship

Postbiblical rabbinic Judaism and Christianity both evolved as distinctivereligious traditions in the aftermath of Rome’s destruction of the Temple in70 CE. As Christianity emerged from its original Jewish matrix, one meansby which we Christians have articulated our own distinct religious identityis by differentiating ourselves from the Jews with dichotomous formula-tions: for example, we have defined Judaism as a religion of law andChristianity as a religion of love. Postconciliar engagement with the Jewish

tradition has led to a growing appreciation for the complexity of theChristian-Jewish relationship that cannot be expressed in simple dichoto-mous terms.

One long-standing formulation of this relationship that can be traced atleast as far back as Justin Martyr is the distinction between Jews as a people

124 On differences in the Christian and Jewish histories of interpretation, seeAngela Kim Harkins, “Biblical and Historical Perspectives on ‘the People of God,’” in Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians throughout His-

tory, in Honor of Michael A. Signer , ed. Franklin T. Harkins (Notre Dame, Ind.:University of Notre Dame, 2010) 319–39.125 The PBC emphasizes that theological exegesis must take into account the

complexity of revelation and salvation history and avoid reductionist approaches.It must be historically grounded, and it must recognize that although the goal of theOld Testament is Jesus Christ, “this is a retrospective perception whose point of departure is not in the text as such, but in the events of the New Testamentproclaimed by the apostolic preaching. It cannot be said, therefore, that Jews donot see what has been proclaimed in the text, but that the Christian, in the light of Christ and in the Spirit, discovers in the text an additional meaning that was hiddenthere” ( Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures no. 21). On typology see also

Notes on the Corrrect Way to Present the Jews and Judaism II.126 Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures no. 22. The Commission of theHoly See for Religious Relations with the Jews states that Christians can profit“discerningly from the traditions of Jewish reading” (Notes on the Correct Way toPresent the Jews and Judaism II.6).










“born of flesh and blood” and Christians as a people “of faith and theSpirit.”127 According to Lumen gentium, Christ instituted a new covenantand called

a people together made up of Jews and Gentiles which would be one, not according tothe flesh ( secundum carnem), but in the Spirit, and it would be the new People of God. For those who believe in Christ, who are reborn, not from a corruptible but froman incorruptible seed, through the word of the living God (see 1 Pet 1:23), not fromflesh, but from water and the Holy Spirit (see Jn 3:5–6), are finally established as “achosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession : : : who intimes past were not a people, but now are the people of God” (1 Pet 2:9-10) (no. 9).

The Decretum de Judaeis—the first draft of what ultimately became Nostra

aetate—had in like vein described the Jewish people as “children of

Abraham according to the flesh.”128 Oesterreicher’s account of the genesisof the Decretum notes that a discussion about this terminology took placeat a plenary session of the Secretariat for Christian Unity in Ariccia inNovember, 1961. In the wake of a Christian tradition that has denigratedthe “carnal Jew,” Oesterreicher emphasizes that the expression “‘Israelaccording to the flesh’ has no pejorative meaning. It does not stigmatizethe Jews for any supposed carnality, sensuality, or worldliness. It referssimply to the Israel that has come forth by natural generation, the offspringof the loins of Abraham.”129

Nonetheless, the postconciliar experience of dialogue invites us tonuance Lumen gentium’s position that the new people of God is “one, notaccording to the flesh, but in the Spirit.” Jews do not understand them-selves as a people who are one only in the flesh. The flesh, emphasizesRabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, is “material for applying the spirit.”130

The human being, writes Jewish scholar Michael Wyschogrod, is not acoupling of the spiritual and the material but a being of a basic unity thatcannot be abstractly separated or divided.131 Jewish identity is indeed amatter of physical descent, he notes, but conversion to Judaism is nonethe-

less possible through a miracle in which a Gentile is reborn spiritually andquasi-physically as a Jew. This, he notes, opens the door to universalismthat Christianity widens.132

127 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 135.6.128 Acta et Documenta Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II apparando, Series II,

Praeparatoria, 4 vols.(Vatican City: Vatican, 1969) II/3:458; English translation inappendix 1 of The Catholic Church and the Jewish People 191–92.

129 Oesterreicher, New Encounter 289 n. 23.130

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (NewYork: Noonday, 1951) 264.

131 Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith: God in the People Israel (1983;Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1996) 66–67.

132 Ibid. xviii–xxi.










Congar contrasted the blood bonds of fleshly kinship that unite thepeople of Israel with the spiritual unity of the church that comes not frombirth but from baptism. But Lumen gentium emphasizes that God “made

human nature one in the beginning and has decreed that all his childrenwho were scattered should be finally gathered together as one (see John11:52)” (no. 13). Insofar as the church truly mediates this eschatologicalcommunion of the entire human family, it is united by a fleshly bond of birth akin to that which binds the people of Israel. “‘All flesh,’” John theBaptist proclaimed citing the prophet Isaiah, “‘shall see the salvation of God’” (Lk 3:6; Isa 40:5), a promise that becomes reality through the mys-tery of the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14). From this eschatological perspective,the church and Israel are a people who are one both according to the flesh

and in the Spirit of God.133

A BROKEN PEOPLE ON ESCHATOLOGICAL PILGRIMAGETO THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD

At the heart of Lumen gentium’s theology of the people of God is avision of the communion of the entire human family united through Christ.The unity and universality of the new people of God is Lumen gentium’s

repeated refrain.134

The dialogue between Catholics and Jews that hastranspired in the 45 years since Nostra aetate has heightened appreciationfor this vision of reconciliation and deepened the spiritual bonds we shareas a covenant people. At the same time, the dialogue also expresses ourfundamental theological differences and the painful legacy of our past.Jews and Christians both belong ( pertinent ) to the one people of God, butwe live this mystery through brokenness and fracture. In a 1997 Declara-tion of Repentance, the bishops of France reflected on the legacy of thehatred sown on the ground of Christianity’s anti-Judaism and lamented

133 “Flesh,” “body,” and “Spirit” have distinct connotations within the theologi-cal traditions of Judaism and Christianity; dialogue that bridges these traditions canbe enriching. Daniel Boyarin, in Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture(Berkeley: University of California, 1993), describes the fundamentally differentdiscourses of the body and corporeality that developed in patristic Christian theol-ogy and the rabbinic tradition. Among the consequences of the Christian-Jewishschism, notes Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, is “the difficulty of Christian praxis todevelop a balanced attitude toward the body, toward sex, and toward the family”(“Reflections toward Christian-Jewish Dialogue,” in Catholic Church and the Jew-

ish People 29–38, at 34).134 Congar notes Leonardo Boff’s observation that the words unio and unitasoccur 54 times in Lumen gentium, not counting the occasions on which the termappears in verbal or adjectival form. Yves Congar, O.P., Un peuple messianique.L’E ´ glise, sacrement du salut (Paris: Cerf, 1975) 83.










“our still open wounds.”135 Christians enter into dialogue with a Judaismthat Wyschogrod describes as “deeply injured.”136

As a pilgrim people with a fractured history, our theology is in via,

subject to development as our journey continues. There is not yet consen-sus in the Catholic Church on some of the fundamental questions in Cath-olic-Jewish relations. Nonetheless, at this point in the journey, it is clearthat we are called to pursue our vocation as God’s people in living partner-ship with the Jews who are the original people of God, chosen according toone rabbinic account not because God’s love is exclusive but because otherpeoples refused to accept God’s Torah.137 “The concept of chosen people,”Wayne Dosick comments, “means not that Jews were chosen for specialprivilege, but for sacred responsibility: to be or la’goyim, a ‘light unto the

nations’ (after Isaiah 42:6, 49:6), a faith community reflecting God’s light of love and law.”138 This covenant of love and sacred responsibility has neverbeen revoked.

Through the incarnation of the Word of God in human flesh and thepaschal mystery of death and resurrection, God has definitively overcomesin and evil and taken all humanity into the divine embrace. “The missionof Jesus,” wrote Ratzinger, “consists in bringing together the historiesof the nations in the community of the history of Abraham, the history of Israel : : : . All nations, without the abolishment of the special mission of

Israel, become brothers and receivers of the promises of the Chosen Peo-ple; they become People of God with Israel through adherence to the willof God and through acceptance of the Davidic kingdom.”139 Jews do not

135 French Bishops, “Declaration of Repentance,” Origins 27 (1997) 301–5,at 304.

136 Michael Wyschogrod, Abraham’s Promise: Judaism and Jewish-ChristianRelations, ed. R. Kendall Soulen (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004) 150.

137 “R. Jose b. R. Simon said: Before you stood on Mount Sinai and accepted my

Torah, you were called Israel, just as the nations of the world were called by nameslike Sabteca and Raamah (in Gen 10:7//I Chron. 1:9). But when you stood at MountSinai and accepted my Torah, you were called ‘my people.’ Thus it is stated (in Ps50:7): ‘Hearken, O my people, and let me speak’” (Midrash Tanhuma, 3 vols., S.Buber recension, trans. John T. Townsend [Hoboken, N. J.: KTAV, 1997] II.2.1,p. 27). On the refusal of other nations to accept the Torah, see, e.g., Sifre: ATannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, Yale Judaica Series 24, trans.Reuven Hammer (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 1986) piska 343, 352–53. Ananonymous referee of this article noted the potential fruitfulness of further inquiryinto the distinct but comparable Christian and Jewish theologies of election-after-refusal-of-election.

138

Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief,Tradition, and Practice (San Francisco, Calif.: Harper, 1995) 19.

139 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Many Religions—One Covenant: Israel, theChurch and the World, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius,1999) 27–28.










believe that Jesus Christ is the messianic source of this reconciliation of nations, but the Jewish and Christian traditions nonetheless share a visionof all people of the earth united in worship of God.140 Jews and Chris-

tians together serve this eschatological destiny through the power of theTorah/Word141 and the Shechinah/Spirit of God, active in distinct waysin the prayer, liturgy, lives, and traditions of both Jews and Christians.In the end, writes Kasper, Israel and the Church will be reunited, but in“the current eschatological interim, two concurrent parts of God’s onepeople : : : [are] co-existing as rivals in the positive as well as in the con-flict-ridden sense of the word.”142

On this side of eternity, there are irreducible and irreconcilable differ-ences between Jews and Christians and deep fissures throughout the

human community. Yet even as we stand in a world far different from thatof our eschatological hope, the proleptic communion of the people of Godmust take visible and social form (Lumen gentium no. 9). In the present, thechurch is a sign and sacrament of the eschatological unity of the people of God when it fosters communion among its members who come from agreat multiplicity of nations, prefiguring and promoting universal peace(Lumen gentium no. 13). The church gives visible and sacramental expres-sion to this communion when it transcends the fault lines of nation, ethnic-ity, class, and gender that all too often shape the boundaries of our

parishes. The Jewish people, in turn, serve the eschatological unity of God’speople when they are or la’goyim, a light reflecting God’s love andlaw unto all nations. Christians and Jews have begun to find creative newways to give visible witness to the mystery of the covenant life we share,such as the establishment of formal partnerships between churches andsynagogues and joint efforts to work for tikkun olam, the healing and

140 See, e.g., Ratzinger, Many Religions—One Covenant 104. For two Jewish

examples of inclusive eschatological visions, see Wyschogrod, Abraham’s Promise38–39; David Novak, “The End of the Law,” in Transforming Relations 34–49.141 I use “Torah” here in the manner of Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua

Heschel, who distinguishes the supernal Torah and the Torah revealed at Sinai.The supernal Torah existed before the creation of the world and is equated withWisdom (Prov 8:22). The Greek-speaking Jew Philo referred to this Torah as“Logos.” According to the Rabbis, Moses received Torah at Sinai—but not all of the Torah. See Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of

Judaism (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1955) 262 and 276 n. 7; Heschel,Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations (New York: Continuum,2005) 327.

142

Cardinal Walter Kasper, “The Relationship of the Old and the New Cove-nant as One of the Central Issues in Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” paper pre-sented at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge, UK,December 6, 2004, http://www.bc.edu/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/articles/Kasper_Cambridge_6Dec04.htm.










repair of our broken world.143 That partnerships between Christians andJews are so strained in the Holy Land—and impossible throughout much of Europe where overgrown cemeteries are the only remnant of once vibrant

Jewish communities—is an indication of the depth of the brokenness wenow face.

At the same time, the new relationships that are developing betweenJews and Christians after centuries of enmity are a true sign of hope in ourbroken world. I draw this article toward conclusion with a personal accountthat testifies to this hope. In the fall of 2000, I participated in a journey forChristian and Jewish students and faculty from Poland, Germany, and theUnited States to the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Os wiecim, Poland,at the edge of Auschwitz. The trip was organized by the German priest and

theologian Manfred Deselaers of the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer;Michael Signer, the late Abrams Professor of Jewish Thought and Cultureat the University of Notre Dame; and Betty Signer, director of the NotreDame Holocaust Project. After walks through the death camps, lectures,and intense and difficult discussions, we gathered on Friday evening in thedining room of the Centre to welcome the Sabbath. Rectangular tables hadbeen joined as one, draped in white cloth, and adorned with flowers.Sabbath prayers were said, the Sabbath candles were lit, and the challah

bread was blessed, broken, and shared. There was laughter, conversation in

four different languages, the sharing of a meal, and song. The song began atthe head of the table, where three rabbinical students from Hebrew UnionCollege led rousing melodies in Hebrew. Then the music moved to thecenter of the table, where a German priest sang Salve Regina. The singingswelled as the Polish students, the most numerous group in the gathering,

joined the chorus, and then the music moved back to the rabbinicalstudents, who sang Hinei ma tov uma naim, Shevet achim gam yachad.

Immediately after they finished, the Polish students at the opposite end of the table began—in unison, without prompting—to sing exactly the same

melody, with Polish words: Zobaczcie, jak jest dobrze przebywac razemz brac mi. “Behold,” Catholic Polish youth and Jewish rabbinical students

143 E.g., at a 2004 meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liason-Committee in Buenos Aires, participants joined together to assist children sufferingfrom the economic crisis. See Kasper, “Paths Taken and Enduring Questions” 10.For a Jewish reflection on ways that Jews and Christians can work together for thehealing of the world, see the Jewish portion of Reflections on Covenant and Mis-sion. “As partners in dialogue,” John Paul II stated in an address to Jewish leaders

in Miami, “as fellow believers in the God who revealed himself : : :

we are called tocollaborate in service and to unite in a common cause wherever a brother or sister isunattended, forgotten, neglected, or suffering in any way, wherever human rightsare endangered or human dignity offended; wherever the rights of God are violatedor ignored” (Spiritual Pilgrimage 109).










were singing together, “how good it is when brothers and sisters dwelltogether as one” (Ps 133:1).144 This event, in the terms of the theology of Lumen gentium, was an act of the new people of God that prefigures and

promotes universal peace (no. 13).

CONCLUSION

“In the genesis of no document,” Stranksy wrote of his experiencewith the composition and promulgation of Nostra aetate, “have I experi-enced more deeply the interaction of God’s design and the concrete histor-ical process, the dynamism of progress yet not perfectly a successful one,the holy step forward which closes a period of history yet opens a less

definite future.”145

The deliberations of Vatican II took place in thecontext of this juncture of history. There was among some cardinals,bishops, and theologians a real openness to a new relationship betweenthe Catholic Church and the Jewish people, yet the council participantsworked necessarily with their extant theologies. Lumen gentium’s theologyof the people of God was shaped by Protestant and Catholic biblical andtheological scholarship that assumed a primarily typological relationshipbetween the biblical people Israel and the Christian church, as evident inCongar’s influential ecclesiology. Nostra aetate, meanwhile, set in motion a

dialogue that is establishing a living relationship between postbiblicalrabbinic Judaism and the Catholic Church. This is a distinct approach thatinvites us to revisit Lumen gentium’s formulation of the theology of thepeople of God.

As Kasper has stated, we do not yet have a comprehensive Catholictheology of Judaism, and many theological issues remain unresolved.Nonetheless, in light of the developments that have taken place since thepromulgation of Lumen gentium, it is evident that God’s covenant with theJewish people is not only a prefiguration of the new covenant in Christ but

also an ongoing reality. The Jews belong ( pertinent ) to the new people of God as the “good olive tree onto which the wild olive branches of theGentiles have been grafted” (Rom 11:17–24; Nostra aetatae no. 4), an olivetree that has continued to develop and bear fruit in the aftermath of theJewish-Christian schism. The new people of God composed of both Jewsand Gentiles is divided by fundamental theological differences and tragi-cally fractured by a sinful history of polemics and violence; the olive tree of

144 Some participants in the gathering speculated that the Jewish melody for this

psalm entered Catholic Polish culture at a time before the Shoah, when Jewscomprised 10% of the population of Poland. The Polish lyrics are adapted fromPsalm 133 by Giuseppe Gennarini.

145 Thomas F. Stranksy, C.S.P., “The Declaration on Non-Christian Religions,”in Vatican II: An Interfaith Appraisal 335–48, at 336.










which Paul spoke is scarred and wounded. In the midst of this brokenness,however, partnerships between Jews and Christians and acts of reconcilia-tion prefigure the eschatological communion of the entire human family.

Jews and Christians are a people whom God loves both in the flesh and inthe Spirit and calls to walk together in pilgrimage to the mountain of theLord.
